


The Trouble with Manservants

by agirlnamedtruth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Humor, Kissing, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:15:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlnamedtruth/pseuds/agirlnamedtruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's in love with his manservant and he's sure it's all Merlin's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trouble with Manservants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thursday_Next](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thursday_Next/gifts).



> Written for Thursday for Valentine's day <3
> 
> She requested the Blackadder quote "I'm in love with my manservant!" and I shamelessly ripped off Blackadder in order to create M/A :P

Arthur was at his desk, pretending to study a book of famous kings and lords. Instead he was studying his servant. He wasn’t to blame, he told himself, it was entirely Merlin’s fault. Arthur was sure he was doing it on purpose. All he’d been asked to do was scrub the floors and yet, somehow he’d managed to turn it into him being on his hands and knees on the floor, the small of his back dipping and his arse obscenely rising in the air every time he moved the brush.

“Merlin!” Arthur finally snapped.

“What?” Merlin looked at him sideways, frozen in place, giving Arthur the perfect silhouette of his body.

“You’re scrubbing too hard, you’ll damage the stone,” Arthur finished helplessly, not caring a jot for the stonework.

“So you want me to work... less?” Merlin asked, sitting back on his heels and looking at Arthur with big, bemused eyes. Arthur bit the inside of his lip to stop himself shouting at him in frustration again.

“Not less, just... do it gently.”

Merlin shrugged and leaned forward again, resuming his scrubbing at a calmer pace. Now his every move seemed to last forever, drawn out and exaggerated. 

“Oh, God, that’s worse,” Arthur muttered under his breath, his exasperation getting the better of him.

“What was that?” Merlin sat back on his heels. His face set in irritation, presuming that Arthur was picking holes in his work just to be a pain.

“Nothing. I have to go train,” Arthur stood, letting the book fall from his hands onto the desk.

He was painfully aware that to escape he had to get passed Merlin, who was exactly at eye level with precisely what he didn’t want to draw attention to. But he forced himself not to run, instead walking at twice the pace he usually would.

“Do you want me to help?” Merlin asked his rapidly retreating back.

“No!” Arthur yelled, pulling a face. What had he done in life to deserve being taunted and tempted so? He sighed and turned, damning himself for even caring what Merlin thought. 

“No,” he said more amiably. “You stay here and finish that.”

“As you wish,” Merlin leaned forward again, this time his eyes staying locked with Arthur’s. “ _My Lord_.”

Arthur nodded, not trusting himself to say a word. He was sure Merlin was doing it on purpose. How could he not be?

As soon as he closed the door, he leaned against it, trying to talk some sense into himself. When that failed he resolved to find the nearest room with a door that locked.

 

-x-

 

It was getting ridiculous now; he could barely set Merlin a task without him turning it into the most alluring sight imaginable. 

That morning Arthur had chanced to walk by the stables, only to see Merlin leaning against a pitchfork, shirtless and covered in sweat. 

On his way back to the castle, not that he had _planned_ to walk back that way, Merlin was washing the horses. Only he seemed to be wetter than they were, his remaining clothing sticking to him and defining his every curve. Arthur very nearly took it upon himself to just tip the bucket of water over his head and have done with it. 

After sending him to fetch his lunch, he’d come back somehow covered in flour, which Arthur then had to beat off of him with his bare hands. During training Arthur had very nearly shot him as he bent to pick up fallen arrows and at dinner he’d leant so closely while pouring Arthur’s wine that he was practically in his lap. 

Then as he was unlacing his shirt, getting him ready for bed, Arthur had found himself leaning forward, almost hypnotised. If Merlin hadn’t have pulled his shirt over his head, effectively blocking his lips, then God knows what would have happened.

That’s when he’d made the decision that it had to stop. First thing in the morning he would march himself over to Gaius’s chambers, convinced that this was some illness that could be cured. 

Until then he thanked the Gods that his chamber doors locked and that he couldn’t be disturbed, unless tonight would be one of those nights where he’d wake up and find Merlin inexplicably hovering over him.

 

-x-

 

“Gaius?” Arthur asked as quietly as he could for fear that Merlin would suddenly appear from some corner and break his resolve. 

“Gaius?” he tried again louder.

“Sire?” Gaius’s voice came from up on the balcony. “Merlin isn’t here, I’m afraid.”

“It’s not Merlin I’m after,” Arthur said, a little voice in his head reminding him that it was Merlin he was after and that was the problem. “My father tells me you’re a fine physician.”

He closed the door behind him, sharply aware that Merlin could come walking through it any minute. “And discreet.”

“Yes. As my oath states, all matters must be treated with the upmost confidentiality,” Gaius set aside the book he was looking through and made his way down the ladder. “How can I be of service?”

“Errr...” Arthur hesitated, making the mistake of looking down. “It’s my manservant.”

“I see,” Gaius nodded. “No need to be embarrassed. I’m sure whatever it is, I will have seen it before. There’s a screen around here somewhere.”

“No, no,” Arthur’s eyes went wide for a second, his hands reflexively moving to cover himself. “It’s my actual manservant.”

“Merlin?” Gaius asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, not Merlin!” Arthur flailed for the name of another servant, any other servant. “A different manservant. I am the prince; I do have more than one.”

“Alright. And what’s wrong with this _other_ manservant of yours?”

“There’s nothing wrong with him, that’s the problem,” Arthur bit his lip, determined not to balk at the last hurdle. “He’s perfect. Last night I... I almost kissed him,” he finished the sentence in a whisper.

“Right,” Gaius looked him up and down. “Are you sure this isn’t Merlin?”

“It’s not Merlin!” Arthur snapped, bordering on hysterical. “What should I do?”

“I don’t see how I can be of any help, sire.”

“I’m in love with my manservant! You have to help me.”

“But it’s not a medical complaint. There’s nothing I can do. Perhaps you should talk to him about it, tell him how you feel. He might reciprocate it,” Gaius suggested, having recently had a very similar _I’m in love with the prat (no, not Arthur!) that I work for_ talk with Merlin.

“I can’t do that. What would my father say? And the Knights? I’d be thrown out of court, disinherited,” Arthur leaned against the nearby table, his head in his hands.

“There’s nothing else I can suggest, sire,” Gaius said, just as Merlin pulled open the door.

“Typical! I go to the trouble of making his breakfast _myself_ and he’s not...” Merlin stopped complaining midsentence when he saw Arthur. “Oh. There you are. I was... looking for you?”

“And I was looking for you,” Arthur said, seizing Merlin’s pitiful excuse and using it himself. “Come on, we have work to do.”

 

-x-

 

Back in his chambers and at his desk again, Arthur tapped his cup, summoning a refill. Usually he wouldn’t drink wine this early in the morning but he was willing to try anything to dampen the thoughts that he was having.

“Are you sure, sire?” Merlin asked him as he poured.

“Yes, Merlin. And get a cup yourself. We are going to do the only sensible thing,” Arthur declared.

“And what’s that?” Merlin asked, pouring a second cup.

“We are going to get drunk and talk about girls.”

“Girls?”

“Yes, girls,” Arthur brought his cup up to his lips, draining it. “And feelings.”

“Feelings?”

“Will you stop doing that and sit down?” Arthur said, the surprised tone in Merlin’s voice setting him on edge. It was completely normal thing to do, he told himself, despite Merlin’s reaction. “Girls. Feelings. Love.”

Merlin sat down on the desk, his only option. Arthur quickly regretted telling him to sit. Especially when he swung his legs round so that they were dangling off the edge, a hair’s breadth away from his own legs.

“You want to talk about love?”

“Yes?” Arthur tried, not really sure what was helping and what was making matters worse.

“Ok. What would you say, sire, if I were to say _I love you_?” Merlin said, as casually as anything.

Arthur on the other hand felt anything but casual. He could feel himself grow flushed and he wasn’t sure he could blame it on the wine. He laughed nervously. “It would depend on who you said it to.”

Merlin placed his elbow on his knee and rested his chin on his hand, giving the impression he was listening intently.

“Well, if you said it to one of the horses, I’d assume you were sick,” Arthur continued, his uneasiness making his voice sound too loud and too fake. “If you said it to Morgana, I’d presume you were mad. And if you said it to me...”

“Yes?” Merlin prompted him, looking at him from under his eyelashes in a way that he could have learned from Morgana, madness or not.

“I’d presume you were joking and... and we’d laugh and I’d push you off my desk and tell you to get back to work and we’d think about how ludicrous it would be if we really did... fancy each other,” his voice got less sure of itself as he talked and he was sure Merlin had noticed from the way he was looking at him. He really is doing this on purpose, Arthur decided.

“In that case, sire, I love you,” Merlin’s face was serious for the barest of seconds before a smile broke free. 

Somehow, despite the way his nerves were twisting his stomach, he found himself smiling too. Then when Merlin started laughing, he was laughing too.

“Is this the part where you manhandle me off the desk?” Merlin asked between laughs.

“I believe so,” Arthur said, standing. His hands found their way onto Merlin’s chest and he was just about to push him when he found himself being pulled. 

Without his hands to break his fall, he fell straight into Merlin. It took him a second to realise how completely he had fallen, aligning himself perfectly with Merlin’s body, his hips between Merlin’s knees, his chest against Merlin’s chest, with only their hands between them, Merlin’s fingers around his wrists and his own pulling at Merlin’s shirt, and finally, undeniably, his lips on Merlin’s, seemingly in a battle to figure out who was kissing who.

After a moment, Merlin let go of his wrists and broke away from his mouth, leaving Arthur staring at him like he’d grown another head.

“Now you tell me to get back to work,” Merlin reminded him as if nothing had happened.

Arthur blinked, wondering if his imagination had run away with him. But it hadn’t. Merlin’s lips were red with the force in which they’d collided with his own and his shirt was still in Arthur’s hands. He used it to drag Merlin forward until he was barely perched on the desk. There were a dozen things he could have said, the least of them being _get back to work_ , but he didn’t care for words anymore. Except for three, the three that never failed him.

“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur said, kissing him again just in case he decided, like usual, not to do as he was told.


End file.
